More Meat Threatens the Planet

Industrial livestock agriculture—raising cows, pigs and chickens—generates as much greenhouse gas emissions as all cars, trucks and automobiles combined.

Cattle ranching at Monte Fusco livestock farm in Figueirópolis d´Oeste. Cattle ranching is the primary driver of forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon, with 80 percent of deforested land used for cattle pasture.

More and more of our supporters are telling us they are really concerned about the impact the world’s obsession with meat is having on the environment, climate change in particular.

Cattle ranchers have clear cut millions of acres of forests for grazing pastures, inhibiting the landscape’s ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Corporations can’t build factory farms fast enough to satisfy our appetite for steaks and burgers. Each factory farm crams hundreds of animals into giant cesspools of manure that emit not only carbon dioxide, but the more potent greenhouse gases of methane and nitrous oxide.

Pound for pound, the comparative impact of methane on climate change is 25 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. This is its Global Warming Potential. Together, we must become more meat-aware and adjust our diets.

When we add more plants and alternative proteins to our diets, we begin healing the planet.

Meat Fast Facts

The livestock sector accounts for 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, roughly equivalent to emissions from the transportation sector.

75 percent of agricultural land is devoted to raising animals.

According to the World Resources Institute, cattle enterprisesare responsible for up to 80 percent of Amazon deforestation.